It’s been a few days since I last posted a product review, so I’ll try and catch up in the coming week.

My product review today is of the Belkin Mini Surge Protector / USB Charger. The concept is brilliant; make a 3-outlet portable surge protector, and add a 2-outlet USB device charger. It combines 2 things almost everyone needs when they are on the road; protection from harmful electrical surges, and a way to charge your phone, PDA and media player.

The Belkin weighs 6.7oz/189 grams and is about 5 inches/12 centimeters long. The prongs are protected by a plastic cap which should ensure you don’t stab yourself, or bend them when you pop it in your laptop bag.

The plug rotates a full 360 degrees, which means you should always be able to find an outlet it’ll fit in. The surge protection is rated at 918 Joules with spike currents of up to 36,000Amps. What this means in real life is that it’ll protect you from most of the harmful stuff that could come out of an outlet. If you don’t already carry a surge protector, then you really should consider it. When you look at the price of your devices then it’s a small investment to keep them safe.

In the event that the device fails during a surge and you do end up killing some valuables, Belkin provide a $75,000 equipment warranty. The device itself is even covered by a lifetime warranty. The maximum load is a whopping 1850Watts, which means you won’t fry it if you accidentally plug in your hair dryer (or if you carry the insane number of gadgets I do).

Included in the package is the surge protector itself, a Mini-USB charging cable, the manual and the protective cap I mentioned earlier.

The Mini-USB cable is special, as it will only charge devices, it can’t be used to connect things to your computer for syncing. Thankfully Belkin added a tag to the cable so you’ll never get confused.

There is even an undocumented feature on the product; at first I thought there had been some shoddy workmanship, as there was a small gap on the bottom going down about half an inch, but I discovered that it’s actually made to hold the protective cap to prevent you from losing it. Nice touch Belkin!

There isn’t much to test on a surge protector (unless you work for Underwriters Labs), but I can confirm that I was able to plug it in, see the "protected" light turn on, plug in several gadgets AND charge my Blackberry and iPod all from just one outlet.

There is however one minor issue: it is only rated for 110 volts, so you will not be able to use it abroad without first converting higher voltages down to 110. If you mainly travel in the States, then this is of course not a problem.

All in all I love this product. It always pleases me when I can tell that a company sat down to solve a problem and took things a few steps further by adding features like the rotating plug and protective cap.

But here is the best part: the Belkin Mini Surge Protector and USB Charger has an MSRP of just $24.95, but you can get if from Amazon for as low as $19.99.

Belkin product page